Vegetables with Edible Tubers or Roots 271 



usually has denser yellow flesh and takes longer to mature. 

 The roots can stand the long summer heat without becom- 

 ing acrid or woody, and while they cannot be considered 

 a delicate dish, they fill an important gap that would 

 otherwise occur in the kitchen garden of the South. 

 A good kind is the Purple Top rutabaga. For a summer 

 crop, the seed should be sown in winter or spring. For 

 other points regarding this vegetable, the reader is re- 

 ferred to the account of the turnip. The rutabaga is 

 more grown as a stock feed than as a vegetable. 



BEET 



Beets can readily be grown for table use in the cool 

 season in tropical and even in equatorial regions, if suffi- 

 cient water is provided to insure continuous growth. 

 Beets are grown, for shipping to northern markets, during 

 the winter, in the Gulf states. They ship well, and are 

 in fairly constant demand in the winter months. Two 

 crops are sometimes raised on the same land between 

 October and May. 



Soil and preparation. 



Beets require a moist soil. One that would be con- 

 sidered too damp for the usual garden crops will raise a 

 good crop of beets ; of course, a cold, clammy soil should 

 be avoided. They grow well under irrigation. Drained 

 land makes an excellent beet field, provided the amount 

 of nitrogen in it is comparatively small. 



The land should be plowed deeply and harrowed to a 

 level. 



